First Look: Magic the Gathering: Armageddon

Acclaim Coin Operated Entertainment has been hard at work on an action-fighting arcade game based on the popular card game Magic the Gathering. The game has two dueling wizards cast spells on each other until one is suitably dead. Magic the Gathering: Armageddon's controls are interesting, as it's the first arcade game in ages to use a trackball.

The player uses the trackball and three buttons, creature, teleport, and blast, to play. A player must make creatures, such as the Lord of the Pit, to destroy the opposing wizard's creatures - or, ideally, the opposing wizard himself. The creatures are from the Magic the Gathering card game and the five wizards that gamers can become are from the next wave of Magic the Gathering card decks. The technological muscle behind Acclaim's machine is quite impressive. A two-year partnership with 3Dfx has proven to be extremely helpful to Acclaim Coin-Op. Its arcade board, which runs Magic the Gathering: Armageddon, is called Epidemic. It has two 3Dfx chip sets and can run up to 80 mega-pixels a second.

What does that mean? It means that a whole lot of really cool stuff can happen all at once without the game slowing down. Look for Magic the Gathering: Armageddon to test in select arcades this September and have a nationwide release in October.